WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? 2.

Hopefully enough life has happened in the last week for your LifeGroup members to ask What Happens Next? And how they've answered it has a lot to do with how fear and anxiety play not their existence.

As we become less fearful, and more at peace, our stories and our relationships become better and better. Drill down a bit more this week with your group members and see if you can't find more ways to grow into the men and women God has called us to be.



Thaw

• If you found yourself at a fork in the road on an important journey, would you choose the path with numerous venomous snakes or the one with a bear and her cubs? Why? 

Leader note: See how many people get stuck with the idea that they are walking. If they are driving, either should be fine. If early on the conclude they could be in a car, take the car away and see what they decide and why.

• What stuck with you most from Sunday morning?

Read

• John 18:1-11, 15-17, 25-27
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Why do you think Peter thought violence toward these soldiers was justified.
• If you had to put it in a few words, what made Peter lie about knowing Christ, and what part of him was in control?
• How does this relate to how you make decisions and behave when under stressful situations?

Leader note: see if you can get to the different parts of the mind at work here in your discussion of the John 18. Peter is obviously upset and is using very simplistic, base, reactionary thinking. He is emotionally overtaken and therefore fights in the face of threat and then runs in the face of danger. Higher thinking would have likely led Peter to peacefully follow Christ's lead, telling the truth in the face of danger, not answering violence with violence, recognizing his internal upset but not allowing it to hijack the higher ways which Christ has taught. This is not to say that defending the self when in real danger is a sin. It is to uncover that the disciplined mind is on display here against the poise of the Christ, and is instructive for our day-to-day lives as we face insult and upset, and the choice to be people of wholeness and peace rather than reactionary liars.

Read

• Jeremiah 17:5-11
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• How would you describe the progression of thought in this passage?
• What does it mean to you that God searches the heart and tests the "kidneys" or the seat of consciousness and decision making?

Leader note: Bear in mind that God is speaking in Jeremiah 17. The passage is about trust in God affecting the individual and then how a lack of trust leads to unjust social behavior. Try to avoid simplistic understandings of "trust the Lord" as you talk about it, and dig more deeply into what it might mean. Often, this phrase means "be a Christian," when clearly one can be a Christian and still be bound up inside with all sorts of anxieties that lead to all sorts of trouble. Find ways of understanding trust in the Lord as meaning what the tree planted by the river signifies, not the absence of difficulty, but strength and self control in the face of it.

Read

• James 1:19-22

• Thoughts?

Apply

• Think of a recent time you have been insulted, mistreated, ignored and treated badly. A time when you didn't handle it as well as you would like. How would James' words have helped?

Quick to listen.

Slow to speak.

Slow to get angry 

(because human righteousness does not bring about God's righteousness)

• How can these principles help train the mind and the decision making that we do?
• How can pausing, considering, resisting the urge to let the undeveloped toddler mind take over help any tensions and stress you are currently facing?

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? [BONUS MATERIAL]

Here's a few great thoughts I stole from someone on the internet who is smarter than me.
You should find them helpful personally as well as in the context of leading a group who's learning to put better stories in the gaps.

How about working on your self-talk, that internal dialogue that’s going on in your mind? You can start by talking back to that internal storyteller with a few simple facts:

• I don’t have any information here, or at least not enough.
• As much as I don’t like it, I can’t know what I don’t know.
• And chances are, I don’t even know enough to come close to the truth.
• While things could turn out bad, they could also turn out good. Or somewhere in between.
• I don’t like uncertainty. But making up stories is just going to make me feel worse.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? 1.

For the next few weeks we're going to put the focus back on out fears and anxieties, and the way that they shape our style of relating to others and the world.

Not that we can totally abolish these fears. We take them for the most part to the grave.
But we can  learn to see them, understand them, and therefore take away their ability to subtly control so many aspects of lives.

As a group this topic is interesting but hard to tackle for all but the vulnerable. As leaders, we must create a space where people feel safe to share what their fears and anxieties are as they currently understand them, as well as safe enough to explore anxieties they don't yet even see. Until we are a people who can tame our fears and get them in their proper proportion, we'll not know the love and peace into which Christ invites us.



Thaw

• What Thanksgiving plans do you have?
• Rake or leaf blower: defend your answer.
• What most stayed with you from Sunday morning?

Read

• Matthew 6:25-7:3
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Why does Jesus connect worry/anxiety to judgment?
• How do these two things affect our relationships?
• What is the difference between being "realistic" or "prepared" and being cynical, fearful and a teller of bad stories?

Read

• Philippians 4:4-7
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Why do you think Paul puts gentleness and rejoicing and gratitude and the reduction on anxiety together?
• What does the Lord being near have to do with anything?
• When we are feeling fearful and filling in gaps to get a sense of control, what would praying to God do for us?

Apply

• How do you feel about people who create bad stories about you to fill in the gaps? Why do they do it?
• Do you see your demand for certainty and your fear of not having things/people figured out quickly a strength or a weakness

Leader note: you may find your people can't answer this well because, though they wish they weren't so anxious or even judgmental, it has served them well. Like soldiers who wish they didn't have to carry ammunition, shooting up the jungle as they went, they are after all still alive because they do it. This is why Paul finishes his thought in the Philippians passage with peace. It's not just about surviving or getting by. It's about having a transcendent peace that ends the war we all feel like we're trying to survive in. In fact, most of us come to see there was never any war to start with. Just vigilance taught to us by the fearful generation before us.

• How can giving thanks for what already is help you to stop worry about "What happens next"?
• How can this group help you to restore gentleness and openness to the ambiguity of life and relationships and faith?
• How can we begin telling better stories in the gaps we have about the world, each other and ourselves?

Leader note: remember, just as fear is a creative force, so is hope. We will talk more about that side of it in coming weeks. For now, encourage your group to begin entertaining that it's more powerful to put hope in the gap, but it's far riskier to our nervous minds.

THE WHY PROJECT, week II

Next weekend is Commitment Weekend. 

There will be no regular services November 9th. 

Instead, Crosspointe's campus will be open Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th for you/your family to come turn in your filled-out commitment card and participate in various elements such as a prayer walk, communion, and more. 

If you fill out your commitment card online at THEWHYPROJECT.NET, you're still very much encouraged to come and participate for as little or as long as you'd like. Each household making a commitment will receive a brick from the wall on stage to take home as an emblem of their commitment to The Why Project, and at a later date we'll all bring these bricks back to be incorporated into the site. 

Like last week, be sure to use your group time to allow members to know one another, and be known by each other in a way that matters to your specific group. But also take time to pray and think some about this momentous season we're in. We will return to "regular programming" after the Commitment Weekend.

You can discuss Micah 6:6-8, the main text from this weekend, uncovering how "what God requires" plays out in your individual lives, and within your group. You can break it down as: 

Do what’s right                 Devote yourself to kindness. Walk behind God.

...and how it was obviously in view when Jesus summarized the will of God as he did in Matthew 22:36-40.

Then, your group can:

• Pray for the members of Crosspointe to be leaning in, to be stepping up to the opportunity God has given this community.
• Pray for the surrounding community, for the many people we've yet to meet who will benefit forever from the faith and dedication of the people of Crosspointe.
• Pray for the YMCA, and the specific people and leaders who will represent Crosspointe's ministry partners to the local community and to the world for a long time to come.
• Pray for the leaders at Crosspointe and the YMCA and the Town of Cary who have worked for years to create a collaboration that will impact lives in ways we can only now imagine.
• Pray about your group's and its members' role in THE WHY PROJECT.

And Get up to speed.

• You can go to thewhyproject.net and see Jonathan Bow, Lead Pastor and TJ Terry, Lead Strategist present the entire project as they've done for hundreds of members of Crosspointe.
• You can see Tracy Howe, COO for the YMCA discuss what effect this collaboration will have on the community.
• You can see Jonathan Bow's 4+ minute presentation to the Town of Cary about the vision we're all part of.